Blog Posts from "Endless Rage" - Gameriot.com

2009 WoW Arena Tournament Announced

no.spam@gameriot.com (Serennia) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 13:30:39 -0500

http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=7913213916&sid=1

I would assume this date applies to the US, as well. Turns out Blizzard comes up just in time for ESL Germany and shows that they do in fact care about the eSports portion of the game.

Discuss op comps, winner predictions, epic fail teams, etc in comments.

Beta Prot PvP video

no.spam@gameriot.com (Serennia) — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 19:32:10 -0400

http://files.filefront.com/WotLKProtPvPwmv/;11717411;/fileinfo.html

Some various fights I put together while the server wasn't chain crashing yesterday and today with the new prot talents.

The amount of lockdowns and cooldowns in general that a prot warrior has in their arsenal now is amazing. I feel almost like a prep rogue with so many abilities available to use instead of just mortal strike and hamstring (basically). The first fight is a true show of how much you can entirely lock down a healer as prot spec that you could not do as Arms or Fury.

It's especially funny and interestingÂ because I would like to emphasize that there is no possible way I would have been able to beat those Death Knights had I been fury or arms spec no matter what cooldowns I use.

Prot is easily a healing reduction away from being arena-viable atm.

Warrior glyphs

no.spam@gameriot.com (Serennia) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 19:54:41 -0400

Glyph of Battle - Increases the duration of your Battle Shout ability by 1 min.

Glyph of Bloodrage - Reduces the health cost of your Bloodrage ability by 50%.

Glyph of Charge - Increases the range of your Charge ability by 5 yards.

Glyph of Thunder Clap - Increases the radius of your Thunder Clap ability by 2 yards.

Glyph of Mocking Blow - Increases the damage of your Mocking Blow ability by 25%.

Glyph of Enduring Victory - Increases the window of opportunity in which you can use Victory Rush by 5 sec.

Glyph of Taunt - Increases the chance for your Taunt ability to succeed by 8%.

Glyph of Rapid Charge - Reduces the cooldown of your Charge ability by 20%.

Glyph of Resonating Power - Increases the maximum targets affected by your Thunder Clap ability by 4.

Glyph of Heroic Strike - You gain 10 rage when you critically strike with your Heroic Strike ability.

Glyph of Revenge - After using Revenge, your next Heroic Strike costs no rage.

Glyph of Barbaric Insults - Your Mocking Blow ability also taunts the target.

Glyph of Cleaving - Reduces the rage cost of Cleave by 5.

Glyph of Execution - Your Execute ability deals damage as if you had 10 additional rage.

Glyph of Mortal Strike - Increases the damage of your Mortal Strike ability by 10% but the healing penalty is reduced by half.

Â Glyph of Bloodthirst - Increases the healing you receive from your Bloodthirst ability by 20%.

Glyph of Whirlwind - Increases the number of targets you Whirlwind ability hits by 1.

Glyph of Hamstring - Gives your Hamstring ability a 10% chance to immobilize the target for 5 sec.

Glyph of Blocking - Increases your block value by 10% for 10 sec after using your Shield Slam ability.

Glyph of Spell Reflection - Reduces the cooldown of your Spell Reflection ability by 2 sec.

Glyph of Intervene - Increases the number attacks you intercept for your Intervene target by 1.

Glyph of Victory Rush - Your Victory Rush ability has a 30% increased critical strike chance against targets above 90% health.

Glyph of Sweeping Strikes - You generate 30 rage over 12 sec when you use your Sweeping Strikes ability.

Glyph of Rending - Increases the duration of your Rend ability by 3 sec.

Â Glyph of Overpower - Adds a 50% chance to enable your Overpower when your attacks are parried.

Glyph of Sunder Armor - Your Sunder Armor ability affects a second nearby target.

Glyph of Devastate - Your Devastate ability now applies two stacks of Sunder Armor.

Overpower one is sick. Spell reflection, sweeping strikes, heroic strike all nice too. More later.

Beta 8885 warrior changes

no.spam@gameriot.com (Serennia) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 22:21:41 -0400

Made this list myself, will update as needed:

-trauma and sudden death switched spots in the talent tree
-toughness now grants up to 50% movement impair reduction
-strength of arms and unrelenting assault switched places in arms
-intensify rage and precision switched places in fury
-sword and board increased from 10% to 15% chance
-critical block changed to add 15% crit on shield slam, in addition to previous effect
-new ability in deep prot (charge; bugged?)
-safeguard now 2 ranks instead of 3 for same effectiveness
-vigilance tweaked slightly
-improved defensive stance causes an enrage effect when you dodge, block, or parry
-improved shield wall increases effect by 5/10% now in addition to duration
-improved disarm reduced to 2 ranks for same effectiveness
-improved revenge reduced to 2 ranks for 10/20% damage and 25/50% chance to stun
-puncture changed to 2 ranks and only reduces sunder/devastate by 1/2 rage now

Weapon Throw (Level 80)
Throws your weapon at the enemy causing [ 100% of AP + 1 ] damage (based on attack power). This ability causes high threat.
30 yd range, 0.5 sec cast, 20 sec cooldown

Enraged Assault (Level 75)
A furious assault that consumes an Enrage effect on the warrior and attacks with all weapons. Can only be used while Enraged.
15 Rage, 5 yd range, Instant, 10 sec cooldown

Basically every arena warrior is going to have last stand now, interesting.

Why I should've been #1 on my fail list

no.spam@gameriot.com (Serennia) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:09:11 -0400

http://img361.imageshack.us/img361/6632/80ob9.jpg

World first, grats on no life, etc.

My beta Paladin video

no.spam@gameriot.com (Serennia) — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 17:23:38 -0400

How a good talent tree looks in WotLK:

no.spam@gameriot.com (Serennia) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 02:29:54 -0400

Beta Mutilate video + StarCraft 2 plug

no.spam@gameriot.com (Serennia) — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 08:25:32 -0400

I have absolutely nothing creative to say right now so I wanted to show a video I made dueling Hips from tich on WotLK beta (since this needs to have something WoW related in it) showing off Mutilate and especially eviscerate scaling, as well as how ridiculous an 8800hp voidwalker sacrifrice is:

http://files.filefront.com/BetaMutilatewmv/;11431340;/fileinfo.html

And secondly, I wanted to plug Lipton's SC2 blog for anyone like myself looking for a shot at free Blizzcon tickets:

http://starfeeder.gameriot.com/blogs/The-Starfeed/Win-Blizzcon-2008-Tickets-a-Starfeeder-contest/

Blizzcon tickets sell out ridiculously fast (and it's a great event for all Blizzard game enthusiasts), so if you want a chance at going without the hassle, you should check out his article!

Warrior TG demo video

no.spam@gameriot.com (Serennia) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:48:34 -0400

Cheat Death raped

no.spam@gameriot.com (Serennia) — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 15:36:32 -0400

http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

Rogues

* Cheat Death: This talent has been rebalanced significantly. Killing blows are no longer 100% absorbed. If the Rogue is below 10% health, the killing blow is still completely absorbed; if the Rogue is over 10% health, enough damage will be absorbed to reduce the Rogue’s health down to 10%. For the following 3 seconds, damage is not always reduced by 90%; it is now reduced by a maximum of 90%, depending on how much resilience the Rogue has. The damage reduction will be four times the damage reduction resilience causes against critical strikes.

In a nutshell, it not only got nerfed with the absorb, but now pve rogues will still get raped through cheat, thumbs up.

p.s. super secret info coming soon in a future article~

S3 end date announced today

no.spam@gameriot.com (Serennia) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:17:35 -0400

Calling it because I'm a prophet. Will edit later when I'm right.

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=7102930387&sid=1

Ons: The epitome of fail

no.spam@gameriot.com (Serennia) — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:07:20 -0400

Firstly, I'll be sorely disappointed if this doesn't attain at least 200 replies.

That said, this is a short little tale about a sad individual named Ons. This individual happened to be the guild leader of Vanquish on Cho'gall. At first appearance, he comes off as a person that seems to be mellow and chill, but the more you raid with him, the more ******* idiotic you realize he is.

If you arn't an officer or raid leader in the guild, and make one mistake during a raid, you will get verbally ASS RAPED by this man. Acceptable in a competitive raiding guild, right? Maybe, if he wern't so god damn bad at PvE himself. He says time and time again that shadow priests top out at like 1200dps when other guilds have priests easily pushing 1500 on fights like Brutallus. Although also coming from a shadow priest that claims, "there's no such thing as a rotation, you just hit things as they come up" I'm not too suprised.

Solo Onyxia - resto druids are fair

no.spam@gameriot.com (Serennia) — Sun, 25 May 2008 17:15:33 -0400

http://warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=76343

My WCM description:

As the movie title indicates, this is a video showing what most thought to be as impossible: Soloing Onyxia. Before watching it, please keep in mind that the feat is not anywhere as easy as most might think. In fact, our group of 3 was the one to set the record for the lowest amount of people to kill Onyxia before Burning Crusade started. That video can be found here if you're interested in reminiscing:

http://www.warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=34385

The record was not broken until a paladin and warlock eventually 2-manned her months after BC came out. Knowing this, I recently found myself plagued with boredome bewteen raiding offdays and arena monotony, so I sought out the challenge to break the 2-man record, and thus, I present this video.

I was attempting this for a bit now (long before Ted from EU released his solo attempt) playing as a guildmate's restoration druid, thinking it would be a fairly straight-forward fight; however, it was far from it. I had to form the perfect gear outfit to sustain the healing, the perfect strategy for phase two and three, and of course, the perfect execution to make it all happen. Thus, after finishing Sunwell one night, I decided to give it another shot and it turns out all I needed was one shot.

As anyone that has ever done Onyxia with a low amount of people knows, there is a bug in the encounter that existed even pre-BC that causes one of her warder patrols to aggro during the second phase if she happens to be flying over the south end of her lair at the same time that the patrol is there. To combat this bug, and to allow a guildmate to spectate, I brought in a hunter from our guild that would immediately suicide at the start and remain dead unless this bug happened to occur. In the event that the warder would aggro, I would combat rez him so that he would help kill the warder, and then immediately die again without any further assistance in the fight. Most would agree that this is still considered a solo feat despite having to do this to combat Blizzard's design flaw.

If you watched Ted's solo attempt movie, he states that fire resistance gear and certain talents/strategies are required, which as you can see from this, that it is not. The only real requirement to do this is to make sure you have -5.6% crit reduction, which is around 226 resilience. This should hopefully encourage other people seeking a challenge to attempt a solo Onyxia. Ted also stated in his movie description the following:

"If this never gets patched - and chances are good it never will - then this is as close as you will ever get to see One Man vs Onyxia - pre WotLK"

Well Ted, this one is for you! As usual, I highly recommend downloading the full, high-quality, version rather than streaming it for better immersion. That said, I hope everyone enjoys it and all feedback is welcome.

Please note that I am aware of the "barkskin" typo in the movie and there is also one part where it loops for a few seconds to a previous point during phase one out of a mistake in editing. Time stamps and game clock can be used to establish legitimacy if it were needed for some reason. I also didn't realize I was using the wrong weapon oil until Phase 3

Talents and gear used (unbuffed stats):
35/0/26
233 resilience
557 mp5 not casting, 277 while casting
2172 healing

-Serennia of VANQUISH
www.vqguild.net

Shout outs to the original 3-man crew for setting the pre-bc record and still showing that you're among the best this game has to offer:

Malican of Dissonance on Ner'zhul server
Tsuaxesis of Deus Vox on Laughing Skull server

And to my arena partner that will never let me forget how bad PvE is:

Neilyo of Merciless on Tichondrius server

First preview of Kil'Jaeden

no.spam@gameriot.com (Serennia) — Wed, 21 May 2008 04:22:10 -0400

Because the WCM movie uploader is a heaping pile of **** sometimes (aka tonight) and I'd rather not wait on it to finish, I decided on releasing the Kil'Jaeden preview here first on Gameriot.

I won't make this longer than it needs to be, so here is the WCM description for it:

This is a recording of one of our guild's early attempts on Kil'Jaeden from May 20, 2008. I intentionally used an attempt where not too much about the encounter was shown so it wouldn't be spoiled, but enough to give people a good idea of how cool the fight is so far. Props to Blizzard for making their final two raid encounters of TBC so epic.

-Serennia
www.vqguild.net

P.S. Shout out to Neilyo because I know he loves when I PvE!

That said, you can download the video here:

http://files.filefront.com/VQ+KJ+Previewwmv/;10287016;/fileinfo.html

All feedback and questions are welcome in PM form here on Gameriot, in the comments to this article, or you can find me at a convenient time on Cho'gall Alliance if nothing else. Hope everyone enjoys it.

Best of luck to the guilds working on him. I couldn't guess who will get him down first but we'll definitely try to make up for a lackluster M'uru placement.

To close, I'll leave you with one screenshot I took tonight:

M'uru encounter: PvE is kinda hard?

no.spam@gameriot.com (Serennia) — Fri, 16 May 2008 07:32:28 -0400

Warning: nerd bird pve article. Continue reading at your own risk.

Since arena is pretty much dead especially with 2.4.2 PR changes, I've been focusing most of my efforts with our guild taking down M'uru, arguably the hardest raid encounter in the game to date. Now that term "hard" can be pretty subjective. I myself consider almost all PvE-related encounters to be extremely easy and linear, without many variations to allow for mistakes from anyone with half a brain. I've really never gone into an encounter post-bc and wiped on it repeatedly when attempting with a fully flasked raid for weeks straight... until this.

While I don't personally think the encounter is overly difficult for me as an individual in the raid, I can say without a doubt that the people I raid with are amongst the best I've ever associated with, and we've spent two (2) weeks learning this encounter for 4-6 days a week and wiped well over 200 times on it if I had to guess. Were any of the wipes my fault? Sure enough, and it's not often I can say I ****** up on a PvE encounter, because most of them are jokes, but this one is pretty much the real deal.

M'uru is basically the raid boss that will test if your raid has any scrubs left in it that can't be carried any further. Literally no mistakes are allowed in this fight, as any death or dps/healing setback will simply cause a chain reaction of increasingly more severe consequences. If you happen to lose one, maybe two people, they need to be combat rezzed immediately or you're screwed because you will have fallen too far behind. Basically everything that every M'uru-killing guild has stated is true, and it's not really just hype.

That said, I feel we should have gotten our kill last Monday when we wiped a few times at very low percentages, but **** happens and I guess we have to settle for a world 15th. I guess really the point of this post is to prove that while most arena players will consider PvE a joke and overly simple, if anything, this encounter goes to show that even a PvE encounter can be extremely challenging without being over-the-top and unrealistic to accomplish. If you feel this way about any other bosses in the game (notably Sunwell), or have done M'uru yourself and could add any feedback here, you're more than welcome.

Of course this post wouldn't be fitting without a kill video from yours truly point of view, which I believe is the only warrior (much less tank) PoV on this fight thus far, so here it is:

http://files.filefront.com/VQmuruwmv/;10238025;/fileinfo.html

I probably have the most annoying job on that fight so if you're confused about anything, I might be able to help if you leave a question here.

2v2 video vs. Johoz; TR thoughts

no.spam@gameriot.com (Serennia) — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 18:02:32 -0400

So any regular on Gameriot is familiar with the neighborhood dumbass known as Johoz. He cries more than anyone about being "countercomped" (hence my new blog banner) and about cheese in arena every day. But that wouldn't be so bad if he didn't act like an arrogant toolbag at the same time, implying that he embodies any semblance of skill. Well Johoz, this bud's for you:

http://files.filefront.com/johozwmv/;9998499;/fileinfo.html

The video is basically me and Neilyo (playing a warrior at the time to practice for TR) playing against Johoz and Crosis (resto shaman) a couple games. There were also another couple matches we played that I didn't bother recording but the results were similar.

So tell me, Johoz, watching the movie at 01:44 begs the question: you did roll Undead for a reason, right?

In other news, the Tournament Realm, while still a good concept overall, has this interesting trend lately of certain classes that arn't viable targets for certain comps (like shs rogues) stacking a ridiculous amount of PvE gear. In fact, it's not very uncommon for me to see on my spell alert "badrogue gains Coup De Grace" (4pc t5 proc). Sure, it's fair game and everyone has access to it, but wasn't the point of the tournament realm to put everyone on a relatively similar playing level without significant gear differences? Blizzard never foresaw the problem of certain classes and comps (mainly rushdown comps) stacking a huge amount of PvE gear to earn a quick kill and take the match to an early 2v3? Obviously no one can do much about it now besides roll with the punches but, I dunno, it seems kind of contradicting to the whole purpose of the Tournament Realm.

Other than that, TR has been fun for the most part in my limited amount of time playing during this practice phase. Seen some familiar names like Kielo (hi!), Nition, Akrios, Neilyo, GC, and others, but we actually fought "duelists going for glad" for the first time on live or TR last night with our new comp of me, Kollektiv, and Orrah; all bg1 (specifically Smolderthorn) natives. It's experimental at the moment as we're playing around with different specs and classes, but they were the only decent fight of the night, wtb more:

Recruiting an enhancement shaman (5v5) and druid

no.spam@gameriot.com (Serennia) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 12:18:16 -0400

Serennia 2: nerd stompers 5v5

no.spam@gameriot.com (Serennia) — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 11:16:44 -0400

http://warcraftmovies.com/movieview.php?id=66173

This is my second video following the one Albis made for me last season. I made this one myself with almost a complete lack of editing but at the inclusion of full unedited arena footage. Other than sharing the video, I wanted to talk about my thoughts on the comp and the state of 5v5 in general, as well.

I made our 5v5 comp (which I'll coin as the "trifecta" comp) to create a change of pace from the standard 2346 I've been running for 1.5 seasons now and to possibly create a counter for the rise in Euro Rogue comps. It took a while to match all of the puzzle pieces together, especially finding an enhancement shaman with proper gear/skill, but now that it's done, I believe our comp is very strong overall and I wouldn't be suprised to see a not-so-suprising upsurge in people mirroring it.

A lot of people will probably say things along the lines of "grats on no skill" or "nice tunnel vision comp" or something of that nature. I really do have to ask, though; what is really considered skillful these days and how is this comp any different from Euro, TSG, etc. I've run four different 5v5 comps with extensive play time: 2345, 2346, Euro, and now trifecta. I never considered "quick swaps" with 234x as anymore skillful than running 3dps with split dps on 2 targets. Euro comp dumbs it down even more without the split dps; it basically just comes down to spamming multiple forms of CC while training one target, and TSG comp basically does the same thing with 2 different classes (paladin and warrior instead of rogue and priest).

So what exactly is considered "skillful?" Counting down "5, 4, 3, 2, 1, switch" on vent for a burst in a 234x comp doesn't take very much finesse. Swapping targets constantly doesn't either, nor does 4dps spamming damage into a warrior. So I've basically come to the conclusion that skill is in the eye of the beholder and any comp that isn't played by the person claiming lack of skill is "scrub express." So why do these latest comps have such simple strategies? Because it's the most effective. I'll quote Swarm on this, since we were talking about it yesterday (screen names edited for privacy). This in regards to TSG:

swarm 5:06:31 PM): their warr sits on one target
swarm (5:06:35 PM): the ENTIRE GAME without fail
swarm (5:06:42 PM): there's absolutely no changing
swarm (5:06:51 PM): it doesn't matter what warrior they have
swarm (5:06:54 PM): he'll do the exact same thing
swarm (5:07:11 PM): because that's all he has to do and it's the most effective thing to do in their nerdy ass sh*tfest terri*******bad n***er comp
me 5:07:31 PM): and how is that diff from euro
swarm (5:07:37 PM): it's not
swarm (5:07:39 PM): that's the point
swarm (5:07:41 PM): they're both
swarm (5:07:42 PM): n***er
swarm (5:07:42 PM): f***ing
swarm (5:07:44 PM): ****ty
swarm (5:07:45 PM): ass
swarm (5:07:49 PM): terrufkcingbadn***ercomps

So is it really "scrub express" to utilize these types of comps and strategies, or is it really "the most effective thing to do?" I'd like to hear people's opinions on this.

I'd like to conclude by saying that this team has been extremely fun for me thus far, and it's not just because we're winning, but because it's actually an enjoyable playstyle for me. It's definitely challenging at times when you consider the lack of CC the comp has, but I'm always up for a challenge when it comes down to it. And finally, thanks again to all of our teammates for helping me create this "trifecta" comp. We're gonna be trendsetters. Again.

PvE'ing it up

no.spam@gameriot.com (Serennia) — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 08:51:12 -0500

This entry will be a bit shorter than my others to avoid sheer redundancy, but I come bearing gifts (later on in the article)!

The last week or so has been pretty entertaining in arena and raiding alike, with me running a few different comps in 3v3 and 5v5, as well as having continued success as druid/rogue in 2v2. I'll recap the last couple weeks for each bracket and then cover the PvE front:

: Neilyo and I pretty much picked up where we left off by defeating Xahlior and Vorrent this week for 18 points after they apparently got farmed down by random 2dps teams. I had to leave for a raid after that win, but apparently they farmed enough bads to get back above us. We'll gladly play them again when time permits and schedules agree, but the game we played wasn't really close at all. I won't go into too many details and I'm kicking myself for not recording it, but all I can really say is lol@xahlior.

To close, I'd just like to say that Blizzard's efforts in 2.4 with the release of Sunwell look amazing so far on PTR. The Sunwell Plateau (25-man raid) encounters look very-well done with a lot of time put into them, the trash is mostly unique and interesting, and the instance as a whole seems very rewarding with the gem drops, trash epics, and numerous token pieces and high item level drops. I mean, what tank or rogue wouldn't want this:

Thing is sick, can't wait to see Kil'Jaeden's full loot table.

Finally, I'll leave everyone with a video. Hannibal, main tank of The Core, requested me to record an Illidan kill from our guild so he could see how I tank him and all, and I did so on our last kill, slapped some music on it, and rendered it. So I figured I would share it here, as well:

http://files.filefront.com/illidan+02+13+08wmv/;9634533;/fileinfo.html

It's not really for ePeen or anything out of the ordinary, except to show that PvE is probably easier than PvP! Haha, just kidding carebears. Anyways, it's high quality and worth the download (don't stream it!) if you're interested in seeing it. Feedback is welcome on it, as always.

What I've been up to; video included

no.spam@gameriot.com (Serennia) — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 06:06:53 -0500

A lot has gone on since my last article here on Gameriot. SK gaming offered me writing space on their site in turn for compensation, I dealt with an account hack, an eventual server transfer (to Kil'Jaeden), and I've been doing much more arena on a druid in 2v2 and 3v3 with the aforementioned comps. I'll address everything in the order stated.

Gosey from SK gaming, writer of the excellent article/interview with me found here...

http://www.sk-gaming.com/content/15450

... approached me with an offer to write on the SK gaming site in return for some benefits. It's an interesting offer that I'll definitely consider if I decide to write more. Their site is a massive hub for traffic and respected in the gaming community. Not to mention their recent involvement in the WoW arena scene with their upcoming 5v5 tournament definitely makes it an appealing offer.

I also dealt with an account compromise mid-december that eventually got worked out with additional compensation on Blizzard's behalf for my troubles, which I suppose is nice. I talked about it in my interview with SK gaming, but if you don't wish to read it, the short version is that you should consider using a nice process scanner called Security Task Manager. It basically scans all running processes, hidden and non-hidden, and gives detailed information on each one and any potential liabilities that it may cause. You can find that here:

http://www.neuber.com/taskmanager/

As many may also agree with, arena has grown quite stale, even in BG9. A lot of the top teams have since stopped playing after attaining all of their vengeful gear, as there is very little incentive to play otherwise. The game needs an injection of fresh content to keep the hardcore players hooked and while 2.4 may offer that with class balancing and Sunwell, many players don't see a reason to continue playing actively until then. Very little has changed in arena, most the dominant comps from season2 remain dominant in season 3 (with exceptions, of course). And finally, there's little to no reason to push for high rating at this point in the season when ranks don't matter for anything until the end where the titles come into play.

That being said, I myself grew bored with just doing arena and only arena on my warrior. Most of my friends had gone casual or stopped logging in nearly as much, or quit the game alltogether. It's been a pretty sad state of affairs with the amount of people "taking a break" or quitting lately, and I needed a change of pace so that I wouldn't be joining them in quitting. The answer for me was to get back into raiding and to be active in Sunwell when 2.4 hits. To arrive at this, and to stay on BG9 at the same time, I transferred to Kil'Jaeden to join Anguish since they presented me with a good oppurtunity. Hopefully it works out for the best; it's definitely been fun so far.

Finally, the most important part of this article: my arena experiences since my last writing here. I'm still trying to find a good team makeup to use on Kil'Jaeden with my warrior for each bracket, so I haven't done much there, but I've been playing very actively on horde Tichondrius with a druid. I've been mainly playing 2v2 druid/rogue with Neilyo and 3v3 druid/rogue/rogue with Qazdia and Seijim.

3v3: I feel that druid/rogue/rogue is definitely an extremely powerful comp that has great control and sustainability and has the potential to be a #1 contender if you have the right players and specs for it. Introducing "Qazdia Cutest Belf," starring:

Qazdia (20/0/41 rogue): http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Tichondrius&n=Qazdia

Seijim (30/31/0 rogue): http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Tichondrius&n=Seijim

Mooshie (34/0/27 druid): http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Tichondrius&n=Mooshie

We've played a lot of trial and error with this comp while leveling the team up to see what works and what doesn't and I think we've finally found the perfect setup for what I feel minimizes our weaknesses. The basic premise:

Qazdia is an amazing rogue, one of the best on Tichondrius/BG9, but only has access to Gladiator/PvP gear. Therefore it makes sense to have him as Shadowstep spec in order for him to lock down cc casters (primarily mages) and druids. Even choosing 20 assassination over 20 combat without improved sprint, he is still able to get the job done and puts out more burst with his spec and also is able to get vile poisons which is obviously important in a double rogue comp. The loss of sustained damage offered by spec'ing 20 combat is really irrelevant because his job is to lock down his target, not to really kill them (although it happens a lot).

Seijim is a very good rogue and probably the best geared on Tichondrius horde or alliance. With both Warglaives of Azzinoth and access to almost all of the best gear in the game, I basically had to think of a good spec for him to utilize that would allow him to do great sustained damage, have the ability to do burst damage when needed, yet retain survivability and mobility. What I came up with was a seal fate/adrenaline rush spec that I have almost never seen any rogue utilize before. I feel that it is perfect for him and for our team in general for what we need, offering him cold blood, seal fate, and adrenaline rush for dealing damage, quick recovery for survivability, and fleed footed for mobility. I definitely think it is a gear-dependant spec that most rogues would not be able to use very effectively with just arena gear, but when you consider the fact that dual mongoose procs and just the exalted rogue BT trinket add over 10% crit to the rogue, you can see the damage potential of this spec.

Mooshie is the druid I play. I run with the hybrid 34/0/27 spec which I've modified since I first wrote about it. My current spec can be seen here:

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0tjMzbIsMuZZVbIxcq

What I've changed since I first posted about it was dropping Focused Starlight and Moonfury in favor of Celestial Focus, as the pushback prevention on wrath can be very key in certain situations when you want to burst someone or to kill pets. I also dropped 2/5 Nature's Focus for 2/5 Naturalist, as you'll never really be casting regrowth when being hit regardless (not even by pets), and I have on rare occasions casted a full length healing touch or healing touch with Nature's Grace on. So with Naturalist, at least I get some benefit out of it. Moving on, though, I run this spec because I find myself often least targetted with this comp (with good reason usually), and at the same time, I find myself spamming spells constantly almost in succession never skipping a single global cooldown, much less getting out of the 5-second rule. I feel that Dreamstate is a huge benefit here, as we've played many games where it has come down to me being under 500 mana when we get our first kill.

Although the comp seems like an out-last type comp with 2 melee on it, I really see it more as a control-based comp. It's definitely not a "melee zerg" team like druid/rogue/warrior can be, as rogues are much more versatile yet at the same time much more fragile. Our fights basically go like this: Qazdia shuts down the CC caster or druid (depending on what their comp is), Seijim sits on the target he can spend the most free time attacking, and I cc the 3rd person and obviously heal everyone. So, for example, against rogue/mage/priest, Qazdia would be locking down the mage, Seijim on the rogue, and I would handle the priest. Against druid/warlock/warrior, on the other hand, Qazdia would be keeping the druid busy, Seijim handling the warlock, and I would be controlling the warrior. We've yet to really see a single hard counter to this team (even beating high rated 2x healer/warrior teams), and I feel we get better the more we play (which unfortunately isn't that much due to raiding schedule conflicts). I'll try to record some high-rated matches running this in the near future, so stay tuned.

2v2: I spent a few days this week now playing with Neilyo as Druid/Rogue. Neilyo's armory and spec can be seen here:

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Tichondrius&n=Neilyo

The first day we played, we were getting used to how we played somewhat and polished some strategies, yet we took "OMFG WHO TALKED TO DOMO" from 2002 to 2236 in one day of playing going 44-8. The next day we played on "Chance" starting at 2200 and taking it up to 2306 going 16-1. I won't make excuses, but the 1 loss was really silly and it should easily be 17-0.

Neilyo runs as assassination/shadowstep and I do agree with him that it is better than combat/shadowstep, at least for this comp and bracket. We've done extremely well so far without losing to the same team more than once except Slayer's Crest the first day when we had a bad strategy going 1-2, but then we 2-0'd them today. Druid/warrior has been almost farm status for us, and anything with a warlock is very easy, as well, despite the fact that rogues can't break fear like warriors, proven by us beating Wojo/Ikaylol and Hafu/Glickz several times (p.s. hafu, that was me playing priest/warrior with Swarm when we farmed you, too!).

One of the learning processes for both of us was to use shadowstep to our advantage and not treat it similar to a druid/warrior comp where you can stick one target almost the entire fight. We began to use shadowstep much more essentially to swap to targets that become DR immune for cyclone, swap the cyclone to the target Neilyo had just left, and repeating the process between the two targets (obviously not instantly when DR is up, but you get the idea). This was especially true when playing against Shazovv and Zhakar (team Slayer's Crest) since we were getting flat-out beaten on mana (without being mana burned) when we were trying to simply focus the priest the entire time. Their team runs an extremely defensive strategy with Zhakar sitting on Neilyo the entire time gouging and kidney shotting on cooldown. Between those and blade twisting procs non-stop, and well-timed mace stuns mixed in, it was really annoying to play them today, even with our modified strategy. You don't have to believe me, you can see the illustrated version:

I really hope we don't face them again, call me a dodger if you want.

So, to wrap this up, I recorded one fight from today against Sonydigital and Relilol (druid/warrior), when we were at about 2220 rating. Other fights I didn't record simply because I forgot to, the fight went on too long to be interesting, or because of something else silly, which is unfortunate because I really wanted to include us locking out 3 warlocks of using a fel dom summon. In any case, this video shows how we typically approach druid/warrior matchups and the strengths of our comp/specs. It's a high quality video, small in size, and rather short, so I think it's worth the download, but you can be the judge of it. You can find it here:

http://files.filefront.com/druidroguewmv/;9562521;/fileinfo.html

I highly recommend downloading it to watch it and not streaming it. And before anyone says, yes, I know it would probably be faster to bind party member healing but a) I just figured out how to do it today, and b) I haven't gotten used to it yet. But otherwise, any other criticism/feedback is welcome. Enjoy!

Week 3 recap and berserker stance evaluation

no.spam@gameriot.com (Serennia) — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 07:51:49 -0500

Week 3 of this new arena season has been quite a busy week with its ups and downs, showcasing pretty stiff competition from BG9 veterans and transfers alike (as expected). As of this morning's arena update, our current teams are:

2v2: 2234 (rank 1; up from rank 4)

3v3: 2273 (rank 1; up from rank 3)

5v5: 2086 (rank 4; down from rank 2)

I'll cover what's basically been going on for us in each bracket, as well as discuss the current state of berserker stance and my feelings on it.

2v2: This week was pretty interesting, to say the least. I hadn't touched this bracket very much at all really without a reliable partner and due to the obscene 2v2 queue times on BG9 (upwards 15 minutes during primetime and Mondays). I was actually quite suprised to be rank 4 last week considering the minimal amount of time I've put into this bracket. This week, I changed it up a bit.

Wojo, merciless gladiator druid from Ruin battlegroup (Mannoroth server), and I decided to team up and see how things went. Interestingly enough, when we decided to randomly play one day, we ran into the previous rank 1 team of Deep and Shinta (Trukilla) druid/rogue, and the current rank 4 (I think?) team of Shazovv and Zhakar priest/rogue. We also fought a transferred merciless gladiator warrior named Relay partnered with Timberwolff (druid) and Factionn (priest); not sure what battlegroup he's from, but the games were rather unimpressive on their part due to various reasons. Anyhow, recap of each series.

Deep/Shinta Team Boolak dru/rog): Deep had a very interesting spec that I was unaware of the first game. He's recently respec'd feral so I can't get exact numbers, but I believe it was http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0tjrzbcsRuZZVMIxcq or close to it. Having dreamstate, intensity, and lunar guidance allows Deep to maintain a ridiculous 215 mp5 while casting with his arena gear which also sports around 1900 healing and 340 resilience. But the kicker here is that his rogue partner (who sports both Warglaives of Azzinoth) can effectively tank a warrior while requiring minimum healing allowing Deep to literally spam Wrath, Moonfire, and Insect Swarm at will. They actually stole the first game we played against them from us since we really underestimated the amount of damage that Deep could put out with his spells.

After adjusting our strategy accordingly, we came back to beat them 5-0 in a row by applying much more pressure on Deep and either outright killing him due to his lack of feral charge, or quick swapping to Shinta once he's out of cooldowns and dropping him while we cc lock his partner. Despite all of this, I give props to Shinta and Deep for excelling so well with this less-played comp and even moreso with this unique spec that I've yet to see a druid run with. I believe the only 2 weaknesses of the spec are lack of feral charge and swiftmend, but if played properly, can be worked around.

The last game against these two is also the reason why we took a break from 2v2 for the night:

Nerf Deep's healing, seriously.

Shazovv/Zhakar Team Slayer's Crest (disc priest/rog): Shazovv, their disc/holy priest, runs an interesting disc spec with reflective shield, allowing them to do considerably more damage than your average priest/rogue teams. Despite taking the first game from them, they actually stole the second one against us by having Shazovv play very aggressively on Wojo while Zhakar chased me around doing literally nothing but spamming shiv on me non-stop while off-handing wound poison and main-handing cripple poison. It was a unique approach that I'd never seen before, and quite effective when you think about it. This allows the rogue to still do respectable damage with wound poison procs along with the shivs, but more importantly, allows the wound poison stack to stay at five, greatly reducing the effectiveness of HoTs and the chance for cripple to be abolished.

Again, after adjusting our strategy to compensate, we came back to beat them 6-0 (I think) in a row by employing a similar strategy that we did against Boolak. This time, I would stick to the priest with a 1h/shield on stacking sunders and maintaining mortal strike until their rogue's cooldowns were all up in order to mitigate the damage taken from two adrenaline rushes. After the rogue is out of cooldowns, he would either be CC'd while I finish off the priest un-harassed, or once again quick swap to the rogue to kill him without cooldowns while the priest gets CC locked. Again, props to Shazovv and Zhakar for running their comp at the level they're at and creating unique, yet effective strategies to counter the fotm comps.

3v3: This week in 3v3 was centered around us playing rogue/mage/priest, druid/warlock/warrior, and rogue/warlock/priest with our druid/rogue/warrior comp. The main teams we fought were Neilyo/Mattyo/Mykke from Tichondrius (team SK gaming is Believing), Vorrent/some warlock/Xahlior from Blackrock (team fight music on), and Qazdia/Yog/Cayley from Tichondrius team PURPLE DRANK).

Neilyo/Mattyo/Mykke (rogue/mage/priest): I won't say we have RMP on farm status quite yet because every RMP we fight, we can't approach the same way. It all basically depends on how the other team plays, who they go after, how aggressive their priest is, and everything in between. That basically determines how we handle the fight in response. Against Neilyo's team, they tried pretty much everything. Burst the warrior, train the rogue, quick swap the druid, everything.

While we all know that Neilyo is definitely one of the most talented rogues out there, I have to also state the obvious that Mattyo is no Ohnoes/Ecilam, and Mykke is no Kintt/Brazetina. It may be due to lack of escape artist, but it just felt that Mattyo couldn't kite Xecks anywhere close to as well as Ecilam has in the past, and I felt that Mykke needs to play much more aggressive in order to beat a comp like ours. We ended up going 14-2 against them this week, with a few close games; however, most ended very quickly with a couple having Neilyo leave the game before anyone was dead because he knew it was over.

Vorrent/some bad warlock/Xahlior (druid/warlock/warrior): Another one of the fotm s2 comps for 3v3, we initially had trouble with this team. Originally for dru/lock/war, we would split DPS with myself on their druid and Xecks on the warlock (keeping MS on 2 targets and not allowing the druid to heal much). However, the way this comp played with their warrior training Xecks, the strategy wasn't quite as effective as we were splitting games with them early trying to figure out how to best deal with this.

Ultimately, we came to the conclusion that the druid has one huge weakness against our comp and it's the fact that we have intimidating shout and blind to blow on him. He can only trinket one and the other is guaranteed to shut him down for a minimum of 8 seconds, at which point, something else can lock him down as well (sap or cyclone). This all allows us ample time to utterly destroy their warlock with 5x sunder stacks, death wish, adrenaline rush, sweeping strikes, and blade flurry while our druid is free to CC their warrior because the warlock has to run a voidwalker (meaning no spell lock) or he would die even faster.

There were also times when their druid would open in a bad position and we would basically just do a mundane assist train dpszerg on him and drop him before the fight even really starts. Nothing is more scary for a druid than a prep mace rogue with cooldowns to avoid cc and a mace warrior that can't be feared all over them. Overall, we took this series about 7-3 as far as I can remember.

Qazdia/Yog/Cayley (rogue/warlock/disc priest): A slightly more unique comp with a warlock in place of the typical mage RMP setup, this is another example of a team that can't be played the same way against different people. Previously when playing this comp, we would split DPS with me on the priest and Xecks on the warlock to have MS on 2 targets and preventing fears and mana burns in the process. This was initially countered by them pressuring Xecks and not allowing him to sufficiently lock down the warlock. So, once again, we needed to adjust the strategy.

After some deliberating, the Golden Child said with words of wisdom, "dude, we should just train the **** out of yog." And so it came to be. With Yog coming out with a voidwalker each game, it would allow us to land an easy sap on their priest without paranoia to detect Xecks, and the assist train was all aboard after that. With full sunder stacks and massive cooldowns to drop on Yog, he would go down faster than Pwyff in a prison shower. There was simply no way Cayley could keep up with the heals on Yog, especially with blinds, cyclones, kicks, and 5.5 second gouges at our disposal on him. We ended up about 18-5 overall against them.

5v5: An interesting turn of events this week happened when our 5v5 priest informed me that he would be transferring off Tichondrius after being removed from his guild and new work schedule not allowing him to raid on EST hours. Our team once again had to search for a new priest, but luckily for us, Ghwrin (our warlock) found us one when he asked Vhell if he wanted to play. Vhell, while a very good player, had to basically come out of retirement, and is obviously not used to the current state of the game (especially with disc priests and cooldown usage, etc).

We started off well playing with Vhell beating some standard teams. Then we played against Trance/Chicane (on a warlock named Stexx)/Medz/Moochi/Kenchow (team We R Godzilla U R Japan). We actually stole the first 2 games from them, but it went downhill after that with them taking several from us. Their team, while realistically 3dps, has a playstyle of a 4dps team, pushing really aggressively for an early kill. Their priest would often help with an early burst tossing out smites and mind blast and our healers really wern't prepared for the damage when we played them, underestimating how much curse of tongues makes you fall behind, especially without heroism.

We eventually made most of the rating back by playing against Slackers (Swarm's team) and a few others, but it's definitely been a learning process for us all, with Vhell having to adjust his playstyle from the old s1/s2 ways to the "new and improved" s3 style.

On a final note, since I just mentioned our 5v5 this week, I would be lieing if I said I didn't get disgustingly RNG'd some games by silly burst damage from other teams. I'm not complaining about double shatter crits, double lightning overload crits off elemental mastery, or even those awesome 4.5k half-cast soulfire crits, but moreso the sweet thing warriors have to deal with known as Berserker Stance. Warriors are almost obligated to fight 90% of the time in this stance because it's our only means of spell interrupt without activating a GCD from stance and weapon/shield swaps, it allows us to break fears and incapacitates, and has the lovely whirlwind rage dump to use when needed. But at what cost?

Let's see, we gain 3% crit using this stance and in return, are punished with taking 10% more incoming damage. Maybe Blizzard is a little behind on the times, because while this was an acceptable trade-off pre-BC in PvP and still is acceptable in terms of just PvE, the fact that this hasn't changed yet going into the third season of arena is asinine. Let's put this in perspective. I have 374 resilience right now in my standard gear and that mitigates damage over time (DoT) effects by 9.49%. In short, my resilience does not even negate the damage penalty from berserker stance alone done by DoT's. Oh oh, but in return, I get 3% crit, right!!! Right...? Yeah, didn't think so. It's a stupid and out-dated trade-off that needs to be re-worked.

If Blizzard wants to maintain the bonus at simply 3% crit, I think a fair trade-off would be 10% armor reduction instead of damage taken, similar to the old death wish side-effect. Hell, I'd take an increased chance to be crit by 3% instead of the current state of 10% increased damage taken. At least this would curb some of the "lol zerg the warrior" strategies (if you can even call them that) some teams are employing. But don't get me wrong, I don't really even fault them for it, considering it's an effective strategy because honestly, if a 2345 or 2346 (warlock variant) team has their warrior spending too much time in defensive stance, you won't win the game because of lack of pressure you're putting out.

Just remember, the next time your warrior gets intercepted or HoJ'd, trinkets that into a death coil or mace stun followed by a 4.5k soul fire, 2k shadowburn, 4k chain lightning, 1.5k earth shock, and 2k mind blast/swd all in the same 3 seconds, you can thank Blizzard for giving him 3% crit in return.

THANKS BLIZ!

Playing to Win: To What Extent?

no.spam@gameriot.com (Serennia) — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 07:06:21 -0500

So basically, I found myself bored enough to create a blog, after a lot of people suggested I write one. I don't know if people will read it, much less enjoy it, but there's only one way to find out, I suppose.

A little about me before I get into my first post: I've been playing on Tichondrius (BG9) since I transferred mid-season 2 from Frostmane server (BG1). I've always tried to remain competitive in arena and giving people a run for their money even if out-comped. I earned Merciless Gladiator ranking playing 2v2 with Spoh during season 2, where all of the bracket winners were suprisingly legit in Bloodlust. I'd like to play more competitively at tournaments if the oppurtunity presents itself, which in light of recent events, seems possible. Anyways, enough about me, onto the article.

There's a commonly used term that is always tossed around when speaking about arena: "play to win." At face value, the phrase seems straight-forward: do whatever it takes to win or accomplish whatever goals you're seeking. But the controversy regarding this always seems to be how far one is willing to go in order to win. Does this catch-phrase only apply to using overpowered classes or cheesey tactics, or does it also cover gear-swapping and abuse of unintended game mechanics? I'll discuss a few controversial, yet allowed, aspects of the game that are often debated upon when it comes to competitors who "play to win."

1) PvE Gear. This is a highly controversial area of arena where there isn't a clearly drawn boundary at the moment, due to Blizzard's game mechanics and people's philosophies on using gear they've earned in general. There are basically three sides to this debate: the ones who think PvE gear is cheesey and should not be allowed, the ones that believe PvE gear is fine but resist gear is retarded, and the people who feel all gear that they've earned should be fair game.

So who exactly is to discern what is fair and what isn't? Take, for example, a bloodlust brooch and now more commonly Berserker's Call from Zul'Aman). This item is the bread and butter for almost any physical-damage oriented class (rogue, warrior, hunter) and is obtained via badges of justice, aka PvE. The same applies for Icon of the Silver Crescent for casters (now Hex Shrunken Head from ZA). Stormherald, the standard issue weapon for warriors of season 2, was also created with five nether vortexes, which are also obtained through PvE. There is also the Signet of Eternal Life (54 sta, 37 resil) ring from ZA that is also amazing for certain classes. There are countless examples of very common/popular items that are obtained through raiding or instancing in general that are never frowned upon. Yet resist gear gets a bad rap from every warlock and shadow priest in existence because it negates the effectiveness of their class; and thus stems the debate.

Shadow resistance gear is gear mostly obtained via PvE (hearts of darkness, etc). The problems with it are two-fold: it allows wearers to almost entirely negate a shadow-oriented class, and it is useable by players who have never set foot in Black Temple, much less attempting Mother Shahraz (the encounter that the gear is meant for). Lots will argue that people should be allowed to use whatever gear that they have earned, while others feel that it is a completely broken mechanic that shouldn't allow anyone with enough money to dish out to make warlocks and shadow priests entirely useless against them. Unfortunately, the problem here lies in that Blizzard cannot just selectively choose which PvE gear a player should be allowed to use in arena, yet at the same time, needs to address the use of resist gear to counter certain caster teams.

My take on it? Firstly, I feel that all shadow resistance armor should have an Ashtongue Deathsworn reputation requirement on them to equip the pieces. Honored or Revered level would be sufficient for this, as anyone attempting Mother Shahraz would almost definitely have this level of reputation in Black Temple by then. Secondly, I feel that DoT's or Warlocks need further tuning no matter how they decide to fix this issue. There's a rumor going around that Blizzard, in a future patch, will reduce the effectiveness of resist gear by 50% against PvP targets. Meaning a player with 300 Shadow Resistance from items will only have an effective 150 SR when being cast on by other players. This change sounds solid, but I honestly feel DoT's are still too effective in the hands of Warlocks due to the lack of mitigation they receive from resilience. I feel shadow priest damage is acceptable because unlike warlocks, they have a finite mana bar and significantly less survivability. Warlocks, on the other hand, remain a broken/overpowered class that uses a mana bar yet doesn't depend on mana. There isn't a clear cut answer to how to fix this, but I feel that an appropriate fix that would not impact Warlock PvE would be to make the warlock take increased damage (something like 25%) for a short amount of time after lifetapping, forcing them to use it carefully in arena instead of the mindless method they use as of now.

Oh, and finally there's the whole argument behind using certain pvp toys such as the Tidal Charm, Darkmoon Card: Twisting Nether, Nigh Invulnerability Belt, and Rocket Boots Xtreme. The tidal charm was obviously nerfed so its effectiveness has gone down significantly, yet the other items can be very game-breaking in certain situations. Are they fair game because someone took the time/money to level up engineering even though they wouldn't be allowed at a Blizzard LAN tournament?

2) Abuse of game mechanics. A lot of people are guilty of this one, and you know who you are. The "drink exploit" was rampantly used by many arena players, allowing casters to drink while being hit by certain attacks simply by spamming a sit macro. No one that I know of was actioned for this, and many people even defended the use of this because it was allowed by game mechanics. Some top teams such as CAPSLOCKCREW were firmly against using this bug, whereas teams such as Pandemic did utilize it. I personally did not talk trash about anyone caught doing it, although I personally feel it wasn't as big a deal as some made it out to be.

But, there are other examples beyond this. Take, for instance, "heal drinking." This is the act of a healer waiting to drop combat, then casting a heal (holy light, healing touch, regrowth, healing wave, greater heal, etc) and then spamming their drink hotkey so that they begin drinking the same instant the heal lands on the target, effectively allowing them to drink as they enter combat due to server latency. Is this fair play or an exploit of unintended game mechanics? If you believe it is cheating, then how is it different from someone who begins to summon their mount and starts moving before the "cast" finishes, yet still mounts? Or the casters that use the Quartz casting bar mod to finish casts earlier in order to get a slight advantage in PvE? Is this really an unfair advantage to the numerous people that do this or is it no more harmless than 2 mages simultaneously polymorphing each other (because of server latency)?

And then we have the pet despawning "trick" on Ruins of Lordaeron where a player with a pet attacking them runs to the opposite end of the map from where the pet's owner is inside the holding pen and effectively de-spawns the pet, forcing the warlock to fel dom summon, hard cast a new one, or fight without soul link. And speaking of Ruins of Lordaeron, we also have the fact that certain race/genders can fit behind the candle sticks, whereas others cannot. For example, dwarf females CAN fit back there while dwarf males cannot, etc. Some players use this to their advantage when melee are attacking them for obvious reasons. Exploits or creative use of game mechanics?

A lesser known "trick" is to have a warlock open a summoning portal on a teammate while in the buff room. That teammate will then have an accept/decline message on their screen for 2 minutes after the match has started, at which point, once not in combat, can accept the summon and effectively traverse the arena map back to the summon portal spot instantly. Fair?

The list could go on quite a bit (wall jumping to evade pets and drink, intentionally getting pets stuck on Nagrand pillars, using weapon oils and sharpening stones, etc) but I feel there are enough examples described here to get some pretty good opinions on the matter.

3) Win-feeding. This obviously became a very hot topic toward the end of season 2, with teams all over every battlegroup rampantly using this "method" of feeding points from different teams to power level a main team into the top rankings. While most people think this is flat-out cheating and abuse of the arena system, some justify it by saying that they got all of their "feeder" teams where they were legit and that it can't be proven that the games were illegitimate matches with the intent to "feed" one particular team. Blizzard did action numerous teams because of this (hi digital gankstaz) yet this still remains an issue in season 3 as there are already these types of teams cropping up once again (hi digital gankstaz).

Although Clicker of CLC once justified his win-feeding in 2v2, claiming he did it because it was "more legitimate than wearing shadow resist" he since disbanded the team before the end of season two. Blizzard tends to not take action against this type of behavior unless it's an extremely serious offense that has a lot of bearing on the ladder or arena in general. Should feeding be actioned or is it another one of those things that certain people do when they "play to win" and that others just have to deal with?

So there you have it: my first blog entry. I'd really like to hear some opinions regarding these points of contention, as I know there are vastly differing opinions on most of the topics covered. Any additional feedback is welcome, as always.